


Tastes Like You Only Sweeter

by inlovewithnight



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-05
Updated: 2010-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Post-season 3.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Tastes Like You Only Sweeter

**Author's Note:**

> Post-season 3.

It seems like it should be summer.

Not that Kevin particularly _wants_ summer--he's not an excessive fan of heat, sweat, bad decisions involving shorts, or cookouts--but it feels like the year has stretched on for eons, at this point, and it can't possibly still be spring.

He's standing in the kitchenette area of the office, looking out the window at the bright, sunny day that hasn't thickened with haze quite yet. It's...incomprehensible, in a way he can't really explain. The whole day just doesn't _fit_.

He's exhausted inside and out, all the way through. The world should have the decency to reflect that.

Robert comes into the kitchen, with Steve from finance on his heels talking ninety miles an hour about something to do with contribution loopholes. Kevin can tell that Robert's only half-listening; he knows that slight off-focus look in Robert's eyes, and the way his hand is fumbling at something in his pocket. Robert only fidgets when he's not completely paying attention.

_When did I figure that out?_

Sometime in this endless year.

Robert takes a Pepsi from the fridge and cracks the top, glancing at Kevin. "You all right?" he asks, and Steve trails off into silence, finally realizing he's being ignored.

"I'm fine," Kevin says. There's nothing in his hands, no reason for him to be standing there. He's just looking out the window.

Robert frowns a little, then looks at Steve again. "Sorry, you were saying?" he sips his drink, and Steve starts talking again. Kevin watches Robert's throat move as he swallows, and realizes he may very well have been listening to this exact same conversation since January.  
**  
Robert's heart attack was in March. In some ways Kevin orients himself around that event, himself and his perception of the year, his perception of...a lot of things.

He isn't sure if he appreciates the changes or not. It's just that he looks in the mirror in the morning and he sees a different guy than he remembers from even just a few years ago, and there's no way to tell if the difference is things added or things taken away.

If he sits down and lists all of the actual, concrete changes in his life, it's no wonder--two rounds of half-sibling roulette, losing one brother to raging narcissism, gaining a daughter he wasn't supposed to know about, losing a piece of his liver, falling in love and getting married and learning to live with the ever-shifting weight of commitment on his back, losing the career he had wanted so badly and had shaped his entire life for so long--

Maybe there's an easier way to shorthand all of those changes. Four guys happened to his life: His father, Tommy, Scotty, Robert.

"Am I different?" he asks Scotty, with vintage Kevin Walker bad timing, when they're woven into a sweaty tangle of limbs and sheets and still catching their breath.

Scotty shoots him a confused, incredulous look, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth and turning onto his back. "Different from what?"

"From how I used to be. Who I used to be." He knows his voice sounds tentative and he shrugs, sitting up and wincing as a muscle spasms in his back. He's getting old and decrepit on top of everything else. "I don't know. Just...have I changed?"

"Of course. It's been two years." Scotty's still looking at him with confusion, lying there sweaty and sated with a red mark coming up on his neck, and it's stranger than Kevin can really wrap his head around, that two years ago he wouldn't have seen Scotty this way, that it wouldn't be a normal part of his life. "A lot of things have changed."

Kevin nods and looks down; this is pointless. "I guess I meant me personally. My character, or something that sounds less stupid."

Scotty tilts his head and considers him and this, this is definitely something that has changed, that he can stand Scotty's slow, thoughtful scrutiny without flinching away or trying to throw distractions at him.

"Yeah," Scotty says finally. "I suppose so. You're not the aggressive, take-no-prisoners lawyer who couldn't admit he was wrong. You're...softer. Not in a bad way. It's like...you've learned to compromise, I think?" Scotty hesitates and Kevin knows that he's afraid he's said all of it wrong and offended Kevin horribly and now Kevin won't talk to him for the rest of the day. Softer but not completely soft, apparently; he still has more than his share of edges.

Or at least Scotty thinks he does. Actually, right now, Kevin just can't see the point of summoning the energy to act that way.

"They're good changes, I think," Scotty says, sounding a little helpless. "I like them. I like you."

Kevin leans in and reassures him with a kiss, because really, he does get it, and anyway he's the one who brought it up.

If he asked Robert the same question, he'd get brushed off. Robert cultivates a very precise air of not paying attention to his staff, of trusting them to function like clockwork and to perform flawlessly under any conditions. Then, just at the moment they feel overwhelmed and unappreciated, the moment just _before_ frustration turned into anger, Robert makes eye contact, gives a pat on the back, says just precisely the right thing to send all that pent-up emotion sliding away as snowmelt instead of an avalanche. It's a gift. Potentially an evil gift, but a gift nonetheless.

Or, possibly, Kevin suspects in his moments of purest cynicism, not a gift so much as a strategy. Robert loves strategies. He lives his life plotted out on a Battleship grid. Kevin suspects that _that_ is the part of the man Kitty hadn't fully understood before they got married.

In some other universe where Robert was replaced by a pod person who asked Kevin if _he_ had changed, Kevin would tell him that he was more brittle and less confident, that ambition was starting to consume him instead of fueling him, that he seemed _afraid_ of something sometimes, and maybe he should figure that out.

Fortunately, in _this_ universe, Robert will never, ever ask, and Kevin's spared the pressure.  
**  
Life after a heart attack is lived without coffee or alcohol, at least in the short term. Kevin can't imagine how Robert hasn't killed somebody.

Robert makes a point of coming into meetings after the coffee and bagels are already served, powering in at full speed and snapping "Where are we at?", listing off four or five things he wants status reports on immediately if not sooner. Kevin half-listens, slouching in his chair; his own status reports are held in private now, the two of them sitting on either side of Robert's desk like they're dividing up spoils of war. A stroke of a pen and the campaign rises and falls. Kevin doesn't let the power go to his head, because there isn't any; he's sounding board, not decider.

This is a feature of the post-heart-attack landscape; if you've seen a man at his lowest, if you've watched him converse with death, apparently you become inner circle by default. Kevin isn't really sure how he feels about that. He would _like_ to not have seen his brother-in-law almost die at all. The way consequences have come attached to something he didn't even want doesn't seem fair.

But there are perks. Like getting to sit in smug silence at these meetings because he already knows the master plan.

He watches how Robert moves, how he talks, how he faces each member of the staff. There's an exhaustively calibrated blend of warmth, respect, and indifference for each person, measured not to their importance but to their confidence. The timid intern is treated gently, the cocky head of field gets a distinct edge of scorn. It makes perfect sense when Kevin thinks about it, but he never would have thought about it at all if he hadn't ended up able to tune out Robert's voice and just watch the man.

Robert is a virtuoso of people. It's fascinating. Though it does beg the question of why he can't read or react to or, for that matter, talk to, his wife.  
**  
They go out for drinks sometimes, in no particular pattern. Campaigns don't follow the same rhythms as a normal office job; weekends don't really mean much, so they're as likely to go out on a Tuesday as a Friday. Fortunately restaurants don't follow a normal schedule, either, so Kevin never has to explain it to Scotty. He doesn't know what Robert tells Kitty. He doesn't ask.

Robert has a few favorite bars, swanky places that Kevin used to aspire to when he was trying to make partner. Drinking there meant you either were somebody or you _knew_ somebody. He's very aware that he falls into the second category; the ever-so-slightly disapproving looks he can feel on the back of his neck make that clear.

They always order expensive scotch, the kind Kevin's father used to drink. Kevin never points that out to Robert, because there's no way he can without sounding impossibly creepy. _When I drink this my mouth tastes like I just kissed my dad goodnight_\--creepy. No.

Robert can only have one glass, and he turns drinking it into an event, savoring every drop and drawing every swallow out slowly. They talk about nothing in particular--sports, in awkward and vague terms because he doesn't care and Robert barely has time to breathe, much less follow anything but the headlines. Office gossip, and political gossip, until it inevitably turns too partisan and ugly and they both fall silent.

Kevin watches Robert's throat as he drinks, and his mouth. He doesn't think about anything in particular, and he doesn't feel anything, he doesn't react. He's just watching. At some point, probably, he'll have a moment of clarity and understand what it is he's looking for.  
**  
"Kitty looks so tired," Scotty says one night, while they're driving home from yet another family dinner that didn't end anything like how it started.

Kevin changes lanes, staring out the windshield at the dark that's never really dark enough in LA. "Well, she's a mom."

"Maybe we should offer to watch Evan for a day so she can take a break."

Kevin looks sideways at him. "Since when are you on team Kitty?"

Scotty's eyebrows climb up toward his hair. "I didn't realize there were teams."

"There are always teams. Life is one big elaborate game night."

Scotty opens his mouth like he's going to say something, then closes it again and looks out the window. Kevin can hear him anyway, asking what team exactly Kevin is on.

Or maybe he's asking himself that. He presses down on the gas and reaches over to turn the radio up higher, but he settles his hand on Scotty's knee when he's done.  
**  
"No," Kevin says the next time Robert asks him to go for a drink. "Go home and see your kid."

Robert stares at him, then looks at the clock. "He's been in bed for hours."

"Then maybe you should try going home at a reasonable time."

Robert folds his arms over his chest and looks at Kevin a little too intently, with just enough to be too much interest. "What exactly has gotten into you?"

"Nothing." Kevin slams his laptop closed and reaches for his phone, refusing to meet Robert's eyes. "I'm going home. You should too. Go see your wife."

He's not looking, but he knows Robert's face has gone icy and blank. One thing that comes from all these months of watching is that he knows these things. "Has Kitty been talking to you?"

Kevin shoves his phone into his pocket and shakes his head. Kitty hardly talks to him at all. Something's gone strange between them since March, and stranger since Mexico. It's as if Kevin has stepped past her, over some invisible line that she can't cross and he was never supposed to.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Robert says finally, and Kevin nods, flipping his phone open and blindly punching in a text to tell Scotty he's on his way. Scotty's at work and won't get the message anyway, but it feels like he ought to reach out, somehow, just to be safe.  
**  
Spring finally turns into summer, and it's still the same endless repetitions, the same conversations, the same circular rise and fall of tension that leaves Kevin exhausted and numb. He understands why the rest of the senior staff, the lifers, all smoke. It would add something at least marginally unpredictable to the day. You never know if this will be the time you set yourself on fire.

He's pretty sure he's supposed to be breathing the campaign, dreaming it, feeling it in his pulse and tasting it on his breath. But he still wants to go home at night, he looks forward to cutting out and going to his mother's for dinner, he lingers for five extra minutes in the bathroom, washing and re-washing his hands, savoring the little space where there isn't electric current shooting through his veins.

And then he comes back into the office, whether it's from that five-minute break or an entire day, and his eyes go directly to Robert.

He's beginning to suspect that he's not living the campaign, he's living the _candidate_.

Robert has a body man, James, a stone-faced guy from DC who carries Robert's notes and phone and makes sure there's always a change of shirts and a fresh-pressed jacket in the car. But Kevin's the one who hands Robert water when he needs it, and makes sure he takes his medication, and slides into the back bench seat next to him as they leave one event and head for the next, already halfway through the first sentence of the recap.

He wakes up in the morning wondering if the field staff has made sure there are healthy snacks at the meet-and-greets, if Tina in scheduling has found a shade of bronzer that won't make the candidate look like a reanimated corpse, if anybody double-checked that the hotel has a pool so Robert can get his exercise in.

Scotty tells him one morning, laughing a little in a way that doesn't _quite_ make Kevin's heart clench in his chest, that he said Robert's name in his sleep.

"In an annoyed way, not a sexy way," Scotty adds, and Kevin forces a smile, shaking his head as he slows his fingers and re-knots his tie. "So you didn't make me jealous."

"It's just work," Kevin tells him, and this time the knot comes together neatly. "I really wouldn't worry."  
**  
They're at a bar, again, this time in Sacramento. Kevin's resolve not to drink with Robert, to lessen the risk of falling into the role of accidental confessor and confidant, lasted all of two weeks. It's too much to expect him to go home sober and alone when they're in LA, and when they're on the road he can't stand the silence of hotel rooms without a steadying weight of alcohol in his veins.

It's late June, bleeding into July, and the memory of the heat outside is thick and heavy on his shoulders even now, two drinks in and shivering under the assault of the air conditioning. He licks a drop from the rim of his glass and closes his eyes, letting the taste dissolve on his tongue. Robert's talking about something--American Idol, something, Kevin only catches one word in four and he lets them slip away again.

"I don't know if I'm going to make it to November," he says, eyes still closed, rubbing his thumb over the planes of his glass.

Robert trails off mid-sentence, and Kevin takes another drink, swallowing slowly and wincing at the burn. "What are you talking about, Kevin?"

"I think it was a fairly clear sentence." He needs a water after this, or maybe a Diet Coke; his throat hurts from talking all day, besides the whiskey.

"Don't be ridiculous. I can't do this without you."

Kevin finally opens his eyes, looking at Robert through the side of his glass as he takes another drink. "_That_ is the only ridiculous thing I've heard tonight."

"It's true." Robert straightens his tie, even though it's eleven-thirty PM and they're in a back booth. "Everyone else who works for me is an idiot."

Kevin rolls his eyes at that and looks away, watching a guy at the bar slide up to the woman next to him and attempt to flirt. "I'm serious, Robert."

"Well, what exactly is the problem?"

"The pace. The pressure."

"You were a lawyer trying to make partner. You're more than a little familiar with pace and pressure. At least this time it has a very clear end date."

Kevin's jaw tightens, and he takes another drink, watching the woman at the bar roll her eyes and cover her glass with her hand before the bartender can pour another. "You're sucking me dry, Robert."

There's no answer, just silence. He drains his glass before he looks at Robert again, and when he does, Robert's face is carefully blank.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Robert says, and Kevin nods. Of course he is.   
**  
Apparently the punishment for failure to toe the line is banishment to the hinterlands. Kevin's status reports are moved to the main meeting with everybody else's. There are no more private conversations. The bottle of water Kevin offers is scorned in favor of a Diet Dr. Pepper from Steve.

Kevin isn't sure if he's amused or annoyed or disgusted, if he wants to laugh or hit Robert with something heavy. This is not the behavior of adults in a professional setting.

He certainly isn't going to beg forgiveness, and he isn't going to quit (even though isn't that what _caused_ this, the idea that he might quit? Well, he isn't going to give Robert the satisfaction), so the only thing he can do is keep watching from his new, farther-removed position and see if anything looks different.

A week's observations lead to the conclusion "not really." The games of favor and disfavor look a little more petty, but that could very well be sour grapes. Robert looks a little thinner, sharper, his hunger for this a little more raw and desperate and, frankly, not-quite-sane. He wants, he wants, he wants; if he _gets_, Kevin isn't sure it won't turn to dust in his hands.

Or ashes. There are certain uneasy metaphors about candles and both ends, and burning out vs. fading away, that come to mind when he watches Robert. His opinions are no longer solicited, and if they were, these ones would not be welcome. But he thinks them anyway, a little defiantly.

One morning they happen to end up in the elevator at the same time. It really is an accident; Kevin had waited the last three mornings, with a cutting remark all prepared, but Robert had taken the stairs every time. Today he gave up on the idea and just came to work like a normal person who doesn't thrive on sarcasm and petty vengeance, and Robert walked right onto the elevator. There's probably a lesson there, like "the universe doesn't think this is a valid hobby." Kevin isn't interested in lessons right now.

"How long am I going to be in exile?" he asks.

Robert looks at him over the top of his glasses, the stern-schoolmaster look that Kevin had to break him of for press conferences on the grounds that it's equal parts condescending and inappropriate. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay. Fine." Kevin nods and shoves his hands in his pockets, and they ride in silence for a solid thirty seconds before Kevin can't stand it. He may be _softer_ these days but he isn't a plush toy. "James doesn't know your filing system, Steve keeps bringing you the wrong kind of water, and from the trouble you had carrying Evan last night at Mom's, you haven't been taking care of your meds and exercise."

"My God, you're a stalker."

Kevin rocks back on his heels, giving Robert his best, most obnoxious smirk, the one he hasn't gotten to employ to full effect since he left the law firm. "You miss me."

Robert looks like he wants to kick something. "I profoundly _dislike_ you."

"What's your point?"

Robert glares at him for a moment, and Kevin snaps his fingers, their not-at-all subtle signal for Robert to push his glasses up and stop being a pissy know-it-all.

"I don't _miss_ you." Robert shakes his head, but he's smiling just a little, and he pushes his glasses higher on his nose. "You're my brother-in-law and my employee. I never get a break from you."

"Fine. Whatever."

"You're not leaving this campaign." Robert's still smiling, but he says that matter-of-factly, like there's not even a possibility of a question, and Kevin finds himself nodding before he can think.

"Let's have a one-on-one at ten-thirty," Robert says, stepping off the elevator without looking back.

Kevin realizes halfway to his own desk that he's out of the hinterlands and back where he started, on the same slowly-shifting, maybe-sinking ground he's known all year.  
**  
Neither of them consciously ups the ante; neither of them is consciously betting at all, or even playing the game. It's coincidence and accident, Kitty's maneuvers backfiring in ways no one could predict and Robert's best-laid plans crashing into reality and Kevin's tendency to veer back and forth between impulsiveness and inertia. The net result is a series of chemical reactions that leave them all dazed and blinking and somewhere between warmed and burned.

Kevin wishes there was some way he could state for the record that he never asked for any of this.

But there is no record, and there is no judge or jury. There's no comfort of case law. There's just this slow stumbling give-and-take they've fallen into, where he's Robert's employee and his brother by marriage and his _friend_, in the weird, broken way that Robert knows how to have friends. It's similar to the weird, broken way that he has wives, who are allowed as close as arm's length but no more, and the weird, broken way he has family, whom he loves best when they're agreeing with him or very far away.

Kevin's put all of this together from his months of watching and listening and covering the same ground again and again. He didn't realize for a long time how much he had accumulated, how many scraps and fragments of Robert he has in his head, slowly being pieced together into a simulacrum that isn't quite ready to stand up and dance.

He could write a veritable Book of Robert, and he can't un-know any of it, but he can't tell it to anyone else because he _shouldn't_ know any of it in the first place. It's...unseemly, to know all this, to have paid so much attention. He should have averted his eyes.

He could plead ignorance to so much if he'd just looked away once in a while. But he didn't, and now he knows. That's why he's still here, really, in Robert's corner, and by all indications he'll be there until the bitter end.  
**  
They do a dinner fundraiser in LA, with what seems like every Republican in Hollywood eating hors d'oeuvres that are not as good as they should be for what they cost and listening to Robert deliver the canned jokes that Kevin's best intentions couldn't really make all that funny.

But the laughter is polite and the checks are generous, so it still counts as a win, and Robert's smiling as they walk out of the building afterwards. James already has his PDA out of his pocket, pulling up tomorrow's schedule and opening his mouth to walk Robert through it when Robert says "Kevin, you drove yourself, didn't you?"

"Yes." There had been a Nora crisis, so he zig-zagged from the office to her charity house to the fundraiser, arriving only five minutes late. That was practically a miracle for a Walker family emergency.

"I'll ride back with you." Robert flips his jacket over his shoulder and waves James off. "Just the two of us. The rest of you stop somewhere and get real food, charge it to the campaign. You deserve a night off."

The expressions on their faces give away a little too much of what they think of Robert's generosity, and Kevin hides a smile as he digs his keys out of his pocket. "Don't go too crazy, Robert. The whole night off when it's already ten-thirty. Wild man."

"All right. Take tomorrow morning off, too. I'll see you at noon. Is that better?" The smiles turn genuine, and Robert laughs as he slides into Kevin's car. "Kids these days."

"What brought this on?" Kevin turns the volume down to nothing before he starts the engine; no need to deliberately invite mockery.

"I don't know. Just felt like being nice, I guess." Robert shifts the passenger seat back, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Let's drive through somewhere. I'm starving."

"What do you want?" Kevin eases out of the parking lot, watching Robert from the corner of his eye. Robert looks relaxed. Happy. He's smiling. It makes Kevin feel better than makes any sense, seeing him like this.

"Whatever we come across first. Oh, let's get it to go and take it back with us."

"I don't really want to go all the way back to the office, Robert. It's the opposite direction from your house." Which was itself the opposite direction from Kevin's own apartment, but bringing that up at this point would be new heights of passive-aggression.

"We'll go to Jason's." Robert almost sounds surprised, like he can't believe Kevin wouldn't see the obvious. "We're already halfway there."

"You have a key to Jason's place?"

"Of course." Robert runs his hand through his hair and looks out the window. "I crash there sometimes, when I'm at the office late and don't want to disturb Kitty and Evan by coming in in the middle of the night. I've got scotch there and everything. Change of clothes."

It's possible that the clicking noise as the pieces come together in Kevin's head may actually be audible. He bites his tongue to keep from saying anything, just steers the car through In-N-Out and then to Jason's apartment building, forcing himself against his own nature not to say a word until they're inside.

A simple look around confirms it; this is not an apartment that's been unoccupied for months, or occupied only for an occasional night. There are magazines tossed carelessly on the end tables, and dirty glasses on the floor beside the couch. There are crumbs on the kitchen counter and a pair of socks sneaking past the bedroom door. "You've been living here," Kevin says, stating the obvious, his fingers tightening on the In-N-Out bag. "How long?"

Robert doesn't answer, and Kevin sees his shoulders tighten. The smart thing to do would be to not say anything. He has never been capable of that, in his entire life. "I seem to remember a whole speech about how you wouldn't leave your house. Did I imagine that? Because--"

"Evan needs stability." There's no heat to Robert's voice; he's only stating facts. It's the same voice he would use in a debate for a question where his opponent has the good answer and he's stuck with taking the hit and trying to minimize the impact. Kevin knows his tells now, his techniques. "And my things are really more portable. Besides, I already had a key."

Kevin shakes his head, swallowing bewilderment, and sets the bag on the table. "How long?"

Robert just looks at him, and Kevin realizes a moment too late to do anything but brace himself that Robert's about to shift tactics, going on the offensive and leaving Kevin to roll with it. "You know why you've stuck with this, don't you, Kevin?"

"Robert..."

"It's because we used to be the same."

Kevin stops, his prepared defense and deflection slipping away unused. "What?"

"Ambitious. Hard-charging. The up-and-coming hot thing who would give up anything to get what he wanted." Robert gestures, the strong, clever use of his hands that looks good behind a podium. It's too much in this small, private space. Kevin wants to take a step back. "Making partner was the same thing for you that being President was for me. The all-consuming goal. It was what you _wanted_."

"Yeah." Kevin has to force himself to swallow, and shrug. Roll with it. "What's your point?"

"And now you're supposed to be happy with being domesticated." Robert shakes his head, his lip curling, and the part of Kevin that's really gotten good at this communications director gig wants to tell him it's too much, it's exaggerated, it will read ugly on-camera. "Settle for the family life, right? Give up everything you wanted, but it's supposed to be okay, you're supposed to be happy about it, because you have this other thing that everyone assures you is really worth more, if you just change your whole way of looking at everything."

Even if Kevin could think of an answer, Robert isn't listening. He's off to the races, worked up and pacing the length of Jason's kitchen, raising his blood pressure to unhealthy levels and getting ready to rail at the skies like the Democrats have tried to touch Social Security. "You got screwed out of your ambition, and you had to change against your will, but I can still get there. You can help me get there, you can live _through_ me."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." His voice doesn't sound right; it's catching in his throat. He wasn't a trial lawyer, he'd rarely needed to practice showy oratory skills. His strength is sarcasm and using personal information as a weapon, but right now he's so off-balance he can't even think of any. "Also, I'm pretty sure, kind of sexist--you're implying that being _domesticated_ is emasculating, and I think--"

"You supported me when Kitty didn't. Because it's the dream that got taken away from you, and you hate that, and you want me to do it for you. You want me to run with that ball, to get the touchdown."

Kevin smacks his hand down on the counter, hard enough that it hurts, and Robert takes a step back. "Don't use sports metaphors." He takes a breath, forcing down the below-the-belt comebacks that are finally coming to mind. They won't do any good, and it probably proves Robert's point about domestication that he acknowledges the fact and only says "You know I hate that."

Robert stares at him, face red and chest moving too rapidly with his breath. Kevin waits, fingers digging into his palms, and the only thing he can think of is a sports metaphor too, because his life is full of disgusting irony that way--this moment is a goddamn Hail Mary.

"Let's have a drink," Robert says after a moment, and Kevin breathes, because the puck just landed in the hands of the outfielder.

"Yeah." He nods and turns away, hoping that will break the tension. "Okay."  
**  
It's the alcohol.

It's the familiarity of Jason's apartment, Jason's couch, the fact that he has done these things here before.

It's the tension still sharp and metallic in the air between them, more than there's been for months, higher-pitched and keener and lighting up Kevin's nerves like Las Vegas. What do you _do_ with that kind of tension except channel it through the body and into a point of focus?

And what has been Kevin's point of focus since what seems like as far back as he can remember, except Robert? The emotions in Robert's eyes, the movement of Robert's throat, the tilt of his head and the set of his jaw and the placement of his hands. What Robert wants.

Assisting in the pursuit of Robert's desire is what he does, after all.  
**  
The scotch is a different brand, for which Kevin is profoundly grateful, because Robert's kiss tastes nothing like Kevin's father. That would, quite profoundly, kill whatever this is they're doing, and while that would probably be wiser than continuing, it would also be a loss on a level Kevin can't really articulate. Not that he's trying to; his mouth is otherwise occupied.

Robert's as pushy at kissing as he is at everything else, but Kevin pushes back, forcing Robert to let him set the pace and lead these steps. It's important, in a way he feels very strongly about but couldn't possibly explain either. Something to do with the power imbalance, probably, though they're not on the clock. This isn't the space where they're employer and employee, and it certainly isn't the one where they're brothers-in-law. It must be where they're friends.

It doesn't exactly feel friendly.

Robert's hands are hot, one palming Kevin's cock roughly through his trousers and the other sliding slowly up and down his back. Kevin reacts to the touch in two stages; first the obvious physical jolt, the want, the rush of blood and adrenaline.

And chasing that a wave of sorrow that knocks him still, his hands going slack against Robert's chest and his head turning to the side, mouth opening for a painful gasp of air.

"Kevin?" Robert's voice is thick, his hand sliding up to curve around the back of Kevin's neck, trying to turn his face back again. "Are you okay?"

This is where they are; this is the place they've made for themselves, cut off and drifting in their determination to be above the pack. Special. Tilting at windmills and oh _God_ what are they _doing_?

"No." He shakes his head and sits up, shrugging Robert's hands off him. His eyes are closed, and he can't bring himself to open them because he knows what Robert's eyes look like right now, and he knows that the grip he has on his better nature is very, very delicate. "No, I'm not okay. This isn't okay."

"Kevin." The tone of Robert's voice makes Kevin want to snap his fingers, and that thought makes him want to laugh, and he can actually feel his entire life crumbling into pieces around him. "Kevin, nothing is going to--"

"Robert." Kevin lets himself lean into him again, eyes still firmly closed but his forehead resting against Robert's. He can feel Robert's breath, mingling with his own, and he wishes he could give anything more. They _are_ friends; he wishes he could tell Robert that, or that the flip sides of ambition and coldness and distance are strength and will and clarity, and that they both have _all_ of those things, when they let themselves.

But there's no way to say any of that without tangling things together any worse than they already have. Or if there is, he doesn't know it. That particular skill isn't one that comes with the package for people like them; they have to find someone to love them enough to let them borrow it.

Kevin stands up carefully, and it helps, every inch between him and Robert helps. "I think...I think we're doing this out of some misguided attempt to get revenge on the universe for not giving us what we want, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it, given that we're a couple of rich white guys and it's not like we're exactly persecuted. Having a temper tantrum and smashing things because we don't get what we want is kind of childish, and wrecking two marriages and one kid's life over it seems...excessive."

He finally looks at Robert, and stops. All that practice at reading Robert's face, and he's never seen this expression before. He thinks maybe Robert already knows what he means.

"I'm hearing liberal gobbledygook," Robert says, but it's forced, accompanied by a tight smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "You should probably get home and get some sleep."

"Yeah." Kevin rubs the back of his hand across his mouth and nods, reaching for his keys. "I'll see you tomorrow. At the office."

"I've got nowhere else to be."

Kevin lets himself out and stands in the parking lot, taking ragged, painful breaths of too-warm air. His stomach aches and his head is spinning, and the part that's hitting the hardest is knowing that tomorrow morning, nothing will have changed. He'll drive to the office and the same conversations will be going on, he'll fall back into the same relentless pace, it will be just like every other morning since January.

But out of sight, the months have been turning, and somehow it became fire season.


End file.
